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DR. BRECKINRIDGE'S THIRD ARTICLE ON THE STATE OE THE COUNTRY. 



"STATE OF TEE COUNTRY." 



BY THE 



REV. ROBERT J. BRECKTNRIDdE, D. D., LL. D., 

PROFESSOR IN DANVILLE Til KO LOGICAL SEMINARY. 



REPRINTED FROM THE DANVILLE QUAHTERLV REVIEW. FOR JUNE, 1861. 



C I N CI N 

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE C 
No. To %VKST For 

l.SGi 



.j: review, 



DR. BRECKINRIDGE'S THIRD ARTICLE OIV THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 



"STATE OF THE COUNTRY." 



BY THE 

REV. ROBERT J. BRECKINRIDGE, D.D., LL. D., 

PROFESSOR IN DANVILLE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



REPRINTED FROM THE DANVILLE QUARTERLY REVIEW, EOR JUNE, 1861. 



CINCINNATI: 

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE DANVILLE REVIEW, 
. No. 25 WEST FOURTH STREET. 

1861. 



292 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 



Art. V. — State of the Country. 

I. Civil War. — Influence upon it, of the Idea of the Restoration of 

the Union. 

II. The long and terrible reign of Parties. Majestic Reappearance 

of the Nation on the scene of Afi'airs. Great Truths accepted, 
and to be maintained. 

III. Duty of the Nation to loyal citizens in the Seceded States. Their 
subjection to a Reign of Terror. Alleged unanimity in the 
Seceded States. 

IV. The Seceded States may return to the Union — or the Secession 
Party may maintain their Revolt by Arms. The War one of 
Self-Preservatiou on the part of the Nation. Not aggressive and 
against the South — but defensive and against Secessionists. 
Supposing the Triumph of the Secessionists; insuperable difficul- 
ties. Every benefit contemplated by Secession, defeated by the 
War into which it plunged. Restoration to the Union the true 
Result. 

V. Miscalculations of Secession. Miscarriage, as to a " United 

South." And as to a " Divided North." And as to the temper, 
and purpose of the Nation. And as to Expansion, the Slave 
Trade, Free Trade, Boundless Prosperity, Cotton Monopoly. Se- 
cession a frightful and incalculable Mistake. 

VI. The Border Slave States. State of Parties in 1860. Sudden 
and secret Revolution in Virginia. Probable eflfects, political and 
military. Western Virginia. Central mountain Route, to the 
central South. Delaware, Maryland, Missouri. The Original 
States — the States carved out of them — the Purchased States. 
Kentucky, her position, peril, temper, purpose. 

VII. General Conclusion. 

I. Civil War. Influence upon it, of the Idea of the Restoration of the Union. 
The American people are in the midst of civil war. That ca- 
lamity which, in the just and almost universal judgment of man- 
kind, is the direst which can befall nations, has already covered 
our country with its terrible shadoAV ; and the gloom thickens 
from day to day, portending a conflict as frightful as it is re- 
pulsive — whose issues are, in many respects, hardly less uncer- 
tain than they may be vast. Hundreds of thousands of armed 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 293 

men are hastening to slay each other — led by captains many of 
whom are worthy to command heroes, and provided with evei*y 
means of mutual destruction which the science and skill of the 
age can devise. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already 
been expended in these immense and fatal preparations: and so 
thoroughly is the most warlike of all races aroused, and so com- 
pletely are the exigencies of the times held to demand of every 
man a complete readiness to defend all that he is not willing to 
surrender, that, at whatever cost, every one capable of bearing 
arms will be armed, and will use his arms with deadly effect, ac- 
cording as the course of events may seduce or oblige him to do 
so. It is, indeed, possible that some wonderful interposition of 
God, or some sudden and heroic impulse falling upon the people, 
may even yet avert the terrible catastrophe, and arrest the destruc- 
tion even as it is ready to descend. It is equally possible that, 
before these lines are printed, great armies which already face 
each other, may have fought one of those bloody and decisive 
battles, whose issues determine the fate not only of wars, but of 
ages. Ignorant of all the future, and imperfectly informed con- 
cerning passing events, it becomes us to speak with moderation 
and candor of the prospects before us. Penetrated with the 
deepest sorrow at the mournful, though it be in many respects 
subliiHe, scene which our country presents, we would forbear to 
speak at all, if it were not that the general tenor of what we 
purpose to utter, is designed to keep alive in the hearts of our 
countrymen the conviction that the whole country may, even yet, 
be restored ; and to influence, so far as anything we can do may 
influence, the conduct of all these terrible affairs, to that end, and 
by that idea. It is this which is the burden of all we have 
hitherto said and done — it is this which justifies nearly any 
effort, any sacrifice, any suffering, on the part of the nation — it 
is this which we must keep before the minds of men if we would 
preserve our countrymen from turning savages, under the influ- 
ence of the civil war upon which we have entered, and for the 
prosecution of which such enormous preparations are made by 
both parties. 



294 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [JuHG, 

TI. The long and terrible reign of Parties. Majestic Reappearance of the 
Nation on the scene of AiFairs. Great Truths accepted, and to be main- 
tained. 

1. For a long course of years political parties, sectional factions, 
and the clamor of demagogues, had given that sort of political 
education to the people, and occupied the thoughts of men with 
that description of political ideas and desires, that the nation — 
the mighty American Nation — had disappeared from the area of 
our general politics. It had been for a whole generation Whig, 
and Democrat, and Republican, and Know-Nothing, and Seces- 
sionist, and Abolitionist, and Fire-Eater ; the people rent, and 
confused, and maddened — fraud and violence reigning in the 
heated canvasses and elections — and the most shameless corrup- 
tion spreading -like a pestilence amongst public men. The glorious 
Nation had disappeared utterly, as the controlling element in 
national aflfairs ; — so utterly, that a President of the United 
States was found capable of conniving — whether through timid- 
ity, through folly, through imbecility, or through corruption let 
posterity decide — at the ruin of the nationality which his Gov- 
ernment represented, and the overthrow of the Constitution by 
virtue of which it existed. So utterly, that a revolt openly con- 
ducted in flagrant contempt of the President, the Constitution, 
and the nation, and attended in all its stages by innumerable 
acts of war — was allowed to spread from State to State, without 
the slightest attempt of the nation, or any one representing it, 
to make itself felt or even heard ; until the vast extent of the 
revolt, and the great number of States on which the partizans 
of it had seized, became the chief embarrassment in dealing with 
it at all, and the main plea with timid statesmen why the de- 
graded nation should accept its own destruction, as a fact fully 
accomplished. 

2. That mighty Nation has reappeared once more on the theatre 
of affairs. All thoughtful men knew that such a destruction as 
was attempted, could not be accomplished by war on one side, 
without begetting war on the other side. It may be considered 
madness in the Confederate Government to have preferred the 
bombardment of Fort Sumter, to its peaceable surrender in three 
days, through starvation. But it was a choice precisely in the 
spirit of every act towards the American nation and its Govern- 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 295 

ment, which had characterized the Avhole previous course of the 
revolt, and which has marked the whole treatment extended to 
Union men in every seceding State, to the present moment. It 
was possible to have divided the American nation peaceably, into 
two or more nations, by the consent of the American people, 
and the change of the Federal Constitution. But it was not, in 
the nature of things, possible to rend it by a military revolt, char- 
acterised by a spirit of contemptuous and reckless violence, alike 
illegal, unjust, and fatal, without arousing the outraged nation, 
and bringing all the mighty questions at issue, to that arbitra- 
ment of arms which the secessionists had chosen — and by which, 
in one form or another of violence, they have achieved every 
conquest they have made. We are not partizans of the present 
National Administration, and have no adequate means of forming 
an opinion, as to whether the particular occasion and moment — 
or whether earlier, or whether later, occasions and times — were 
best suited for armed resistance by it, to the progress of the great 
military revolt, whose avowed objects were the destruction of the 
Government, the overthrow of the Constitution, and the ruin of 
the nation. What we wish to signalize is the majestic reappear- 
ance of the American Nation in the mighty scene — the simulta- 
neous perishing of all factions, and disappearance of all parties 
but the party of the nation, and the party of secession — and the 
unanimous conviction of all American citizens loyal to their coun- 
try, that the National Government is the true and only lawful 
representative of the nation itself. With almost absolute unanim- 
ity the twenty millions of people in the nineteen Northern States ; 
the great majority of the four millions of white persons in the 
five Border Slave States ; and, as we firmly believe, a very large 
portion of the four millions of white people in the remaining ten 
Slave States, though now cruelly oppressed and silenced, cor- 
dially recognize these great truths, and will maintain them — 
namely, that the American people are a nation — that the Consti- 
tution and laws of the United States are supreme in this nation 
— that the Federal Government is the true and only legal repre- 
sentative of this nation, charged with the defence of its safety, 
the execution of its laws, and the protection of its liberties — in 
the execution of which duties it is bound to repel force by force. 



296 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

Nothing can give greater intensity to the facts and principles to 
which the foregoing statements relate, than a comparison of what 
has occurred in all the States which have seceded, with what has 
occurred in all those which have not seceded — touching the means 
by which the revolutionists have gained the mastery and silenced 
opposition in the former, and the manner in which the nation has 
spontaneously roused itself in its own defence in the latter. 

III. Duty of the Nation to loyal citizens in the seceded States. Their subjec- 
tion to a Reign of Terror, Alleged unanimity in the seceded States. 

1. Next in importance to the clear apprehension of the duty, 
which every loyal citizen of the nation owes to the National Gov- 
ernment, in this most painful crisis — concerning which we have 
just endeavored to disclose the enthusiastic conviction of the nation 
itself; is an equally clear apprehension of the duty which the nation 
owes to loyal citizens in those States in which the revolutionary 
party has gained the ascendency, or in which that party may 
hereafter gain it. This latter question, as far as we know, seems 
not, as yet, to have been fully considered or determined by the 
General Government. The secession party seems to have decided 
it at once, and according to its violent instincts ; and not only 
does their unanimous judgment demand of them exile, death, or 
conversion — but their legal authorities are reputed to be prompt, 
and their ubiquitous committees of vigilance very vehement in 
the execution of a code — nearly as simple and efficacious as that 
of Mahomet himself. There is much reason to believe that the 
actual majority of votes was cast against the secessionists in sev- 
eral States upon which they have seized; that in several others 
held by them, such a majority would have been cast, if an oppor- 
tunity had been allowed : that in not one of those States has there 
been a true and fair popular ratification of secession ; that before 
the actual commencement of armed resistance on a large scale by 
the Federal Government, the actual majority of the people in the 
Confederate States, taken as a body, was hostile to secession ; and 
that, undeniably, a certain number, and that considerable, of loyal 
citizens, are in every one of those States. Allowing that a state 
of things even tolerably near to that contained in the foregoing 
Btateraent exists — nothins; seems to us more clear than that the 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 297 

American people, and by consequence the Federal Government, 
are bound to put forth their utmost strength for the protection of 
American citizens situated as persons loyal to the Union are be- 
lieved to be, in every State that has seceded. Questions of prop- 
erty, questions of rights of various kinds, questions of profit and 
advantage — may be compromised or even gracefully surrendered 
on many occasions. But no Government — no people — no gen- 
tleman — no Christian, can withdraw protection and support from 
those who are bound to them by the most sacred and tender mu- 
tual ties, and leave them to be degraded, oppressed, and perse- 
cuted — without atrocious iniquity and boundless degradation. It 
seems to us that it would be transparently clear, even if nine- 
tenths of the people in every one of the Confederate States, were 
decided secessionists — that they should be required to treat the 
loyal citizens of the United States, found casually amongst them, 
much more those resident amongst them upon the sudden outbreak 
of revolt, with justice and humanity. If, however, it is really 
true that the secessionists are the minority in many of those 
States, upon which they have seized by superior organization, and 
the suddenness and violence of their proceedings ; then, undoubt- 
edly, the duty of the nation is as obvious to deliver those States 
from such a despotism, as it would be if their oppressors Averc 
foreign invaders. In like manner, it is the duty of the General 
Government to furnish all the munitions of Avar to its loyal citi- 
zens residing in States where it is necessary for them to defend, 
by arms, their loyalty to the Uaion, against armed conspiracies 
seeking to force them into secession. 

2. Peaceable revolutions are made by voting; and the funda- 
mental principle of republican government — which the nation is 
bound by the Constitution to guarantee to every State — is that 
the majority of those entitled to vote — and not an armed faction 
— represents the sovereignty. It would be curious to compare 
the universal contempt for popular rights and institutions, and 
for all the principles and usages of American freedom, which has 
so conspicuously distinguished the career of this secession revolu- 
tion — since the aristocratic minority has got possession of power; 
with the theory of " Concurrent Majorities," so carefully elabo- 
rated by their first Apostle, Mr. Calhoun, for the special protec- 



298 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

tion of the rights of minorities in free governments. Widely 
different from the principle of Mr. Calhoun's theory, is that now 
reduced to practice in the seceded States, by getting together a 
certain number of persons called a "Convention" — in whom the 
sovereignty of the people is supposed to reside in a permanent and 
manageable form ; bodies which in the revolted States have been 
converted into secret, permanent, and irresponsible engines, first 
of revolution, and then of despotism. We do not speak of the 
suppression of such desperate substitutes for republican govern- 
ment ; nor will we stop to point out how fatally such proceedings 
reveal the anarchy from which they take their rise, and the mili- 
tary despotism in the future to which they unerringly point. What 
we have to urge is, the solemn duty of the nation to protect loyal 
minorities, much more loyal majorities, against the ferocious pro- 
ceedings already made manifest under the workings of these in- 
stitutions ; and to warn those yet free from their pitiless grasp, 
to prepare for slavery before they rush into the power of such 
rulers. 

3. Nor is it out of place to remind those Avho clamor inces- 
santly about the unanimity of the South, and the folly and wicked- 
ness of attempting to resist the settled purpose of a whole people 
who have resolved to leave a Union which they detest ; that the 
nation does not believe in either the alleged " unanimity,'' or the 
proclaimed " fixed purpose." Doubtless it is true, that the pecu- 
liar notions of exclusive loyalty to the State we live in, which pre- 
vail extensively in the Southern ^States — have caused many loyal 
people to submit to the despotism which forced them into seces- 
sion ; and State pride, affection for our native land, and many 
other considerations, have swelled the ranks of the army of the 
secessionists, since war on a large scale, and imminent peril to their 
cause, suddenly and most unexpectedly met them in their violent 
career. But the American people, in this great crisis of their 
destiny, have solemn duties to perform — and have a right to be 
satisfied that they are truly informed, before they take steps which 
they may never be able to retrace. The American people fervently 
desire the entire restoration of the Union, with the entire consent 
of all the secession States. And they firmly believe that result — 
attended by the total overthrow of the secession faction — would 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 299 

immediately succeed a reaction in the South, not the tenth part as 
great as that which has just occurred in the North — not greater, 
indeed, than the one, in an opposite direction, which has occurred 
throughout the South, within half a year. It is, just now, a ques- 
tion of testimony first, and then of duty founded thereon ; — a ques- 
tion, not between the South and the North ; but between a nation 
of some twenty-six or seven millions, and an active faction, pos- 
sibly under one million, in revolt against it. 

IV. The Seceded Slates may return to the Uuiou, or the Secession Party may 
maintain their Revolt by Arms. The War one of Self-Preservation, on 
the Part of the Nation. Not aggressive and against the South — but defen- 
sive and against Secessionists. Supposing the Triumph of the Secession- 
ists ; insuperable Difficulties. Every benefit contemplated by Secession, 
defeated by the War into which it plunged. Restoration to the Union the 
true Result. 

1. We have already said that the issues of this unnatural war, 
are in many respects as uncertain as they will probably be vast. 
Contingently, however, the most immediate and direct issue of it, 
can have but one, of two results. Either tlic seceded States must 
return to their loyalty to the nation, and their position as members 
of the United States of America ; or the secession party must be 
able to vindicate by arms the course upon which they have entered, 
and, maintaining the independence of as many of the States as 
may finally adhere to them, those States must be acknowledged 
by the American people and Government as a separate nation. 
Of course, there can be no such result as the conquest of the se- 
ceded States, and the holding them as Provinces or Territories, by 
the Federal Government. Such an attempt is not to be thought 
of as possible — nor to be entertained, for a moment, even if it were 
possible, as a permanent policy — but, beyond all this, even if it 
were politic and easy, it would be even more abhorrent, if pos- 
sible, than secession itself, to the feelings of the American peo- 
ple, and the principles of American liberty. Which of these 
issues will be realized depends, apparently, on the event of the 
war : concerning which we Avill add something presently, seeing 
the probabilities of that event ought to be a very weighty consid- 
eration with both parties to it. In the meantime let it be observed, 
that the mere statement of the case makes it manifest that the 
war entered upon by the nation, not as one of aggression and con- 



300 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

quest, but one of self-defence and self-preservation, can be con- 
ducted only as war upon the secession party and Government — 
and not as war against the people of the South ; a war, therefore, 
which would end of itself, upon the overthrow of the secession 
party, and the suppression of the Confederate Government erected 
by that party. 

2. Upon the happening of such an event, which certainly is 
possible, perhaps highly probable, the allegation is that no people 
— no South — would remain to reconstruct society and government, 
and restore the seceded States to their place in the Union. We 
have already spoken of the want of faith in all such extravagant 
statements ; an incredulity fortified by the whole career of the 
revolt, both in its method of usurping power, and its method of 
producing unanimity afterwards ; to which must be added the un- 
deniable proofs existing in public acts and records, in popular 
movements and votes, in numberless private communications, in 
the persecutions lavishly inflicted upon thousands of persons, and. 
in the seductions habitually employed against every doubtful, and 
the menaces against every loyal, citizen. What is now passing in 
Tennessee and Virginia, while we write, is full of significance as 
to what might be expected if the army of the secessionists were 
driven out of those States. What happened, months ago, in vari- 
ous Southern States in which that party succeeded in establishing 
their despotism — and what has recently happened in Maryland, 
Missouri, and Kentucky, where their desperate eiforts failed — is 
conclusive as to the great fact, that the mass of the community 
every where needed only to have been wisely and bravely led, to 
have conquered what seems to have been, almost every where that 
it existed, a faction of the minority. What made it powerful, was 
its long previous training — its activity and daring at a moment 
of great popular discontent, mortification, and alarm — and the 
fatal connivance of Mr. Buchanan, rendered decisive by the active 
cooperation with the revolt, of those members of his Cabinet whose 
positions had given them special opportunities to promote its oi-gan- 
ization and its first acts. It had, originally, no element of a na- 
tional movement — it has now no aspect of a national revolution. 
And, in our judgment, the moment it encounters signal defeat, a 
counter revolution will set in, that will strip it of all that did not 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTKY. 301 

belong to it in its first stages ; and under just and wise treatment, 
will eventually restore to the Union every seceded State, not ex- 
cepting South Carolina itself. For ourselves, and we believe in 
this we utter the sentiments of the whole nation, we desire for 
the people in the States now held in armed opposition to the 
National Government, nothing worse than their complete deliver- 
ance from the iron despotism of a disloyal and frantic party, and 
their speedy and complete restoration, in perfect equality and re- 
newed fraternity, to all the glory of our common nationality, and 
all the blessings of our true and regulated freedom. 

3. Supposing we are mistaken in the essential conditions by 
which the foregoing result is to be obtained, there remains only 
the alternative of the triumph of the revolt over the nation, and 
the permanent independence of the seceded States. We do not 
propose to discuss, at this time, the consequences of such a divis- 
ion of the nation — but only to look calmly at some of the most 
obvious diflficulties of its accomplishment. And in the very front 
of all these, is the question of the ability of the secession party, 
either to obtain from the consent of the nation, the concession of 
the independence of the Confederate States, or its ability to wrest 
it from the nation by arms. The question of that consent is a 
question of peace, not of war ; a question which the secession 
party disdained even to discuss before they flew to arms ; a ques- 
tion which will, hereafter, depend essentially upon the state of 
the country, and the wishes of the States now under the domin- 
ion of that party, after the war is ended. The great principle on 
which the consent of the nation could, in any circumstances be 
given, is precisely opposite to the great principle on which this 
revolt proceeds — namely, veneration for popular rights and the 
popular will. What view the people of the South may take of 
their rights, and what may be their will touching their erection 
into a separate nation — are questions which may be very greatly 
affected by the progress of events — and the decision of which, 
by themselves, may be very various, according as they are in cir- 
cumstances which allow them to vote and act freely, or, which 
oblige them to vote and act under a ubiquitous military despot- 
ism, administered by armed revolutionary committees of vigilance. 
What is passing now in Virginia and Tennessee — what has passed 



302 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

in every State that has ah^eady seceded — what was attempted in 
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri — would not, in all probability, 
be taken — by a great nation loyal to popular rights, and full of 
veneration for free institutions — for such an expression of the pop- 
ular desire and will, on the part of gi-eat numbers of its citizens, 
as would challenge its consent to its own dismemberment. It is 
not to be disguised, however, that even under the most favorable 
aspect in which the subject of the peaceable division of the nation 
could be presented, there are obstacles in the way of its accom- 
plishment which nothing but the highest and noblest convictions 
of mutual obligations, united with the profoundest sense of mutual 
forbearance, accommodation, and good Avill — could surmount. 
In the present state of the country, it is superfluous to discuss 
these obstacles. And in the degree that independence, by what- 
ever means, as the only alternative to restoration to the Union, 
is environed with difficulties ; is the madness of the secession 
movement manifest, and the duty of the nation to suppress it 
clear. 

4. It seems to remain, then, that the solitary result of the war, 
is the restoration of the seceded States to the Union, or the tri- 
umph of the arms of the secessionists over the nation. The more 
completely this great truth is fixed in the minds of all parties, the 
better for all. The more thoroughly the nation undei-stands that 
it is fighting neither for vengeance nor for conquest, but directly 
for self-preservation — and remotely for the maintenance of its 
independence in the face of all other nations, and for its future 
peace, security, and advancement in the glorious career now 
threatened to be cut short ; the more it will be disposed to pros- 
ecute the war forced upon it, in the manner which becomes such 
a people, driven into such a conflict. And the more completely 
those who are in arms against the nation realize, that what they 
seek is, probably, not attainable ; and the more clearly the States 
and people now seduced or terrified into a revolt so unnatural, 
understand that the suppression of that revolt means, not their 
degradation, but their restoration to all that was won by the valor, 
and confirmed by the wisdom of their ancestors ; the more certain 
will be the cure of their present frenzy — the more rapid their 
deliverance from the delusions under which they have erred ex- 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 80^ 

ceedingly — and the more thorough their overthrow of the faction 
noAV leading them to destruction. 

5. To all human appearance, the establishment of the independ- 
ence of the Confederate States by the present war, is impossible. 
How much blood may be shed, how much treasure may be squan- 
dered, how much suflFcring may be inflicted, how much ruin, in 
ten thousand ways, may be brought upon millions of people, and 
how near to the brink of destruction the country may be brought — 
can now be known only to the Ruler of the Universe. But so far 
as any object avowed, or even conceivable, which ever was, or 
can be, proposed as a benefit to the Southern States, was expected 
to be promoted by secession ; this war renders that object unat- 
tainable. We do not propose to enter into discussions from a 
military point of view, nor do we underrate the difficulties of every 
kind, which the General Government has to encounter. But it 
seems to us perfectly inevitable, that without the special interpo- 
sition of God for the destruction of this great nation, the certainty 
is complete — that the independence of the Confederate States 
cannot be established as the result of this war. In the degree 
that this judgment may be supposed to be just, two conclusions, 
both of them of great weight, follow. The first is, the wicked- 
ness and folly not only of the revolt itself, but of the whole spirit 
and method in which it has been prosecuted; the second is the 
certainty that the fact itself, in proportion as it becomes manifest, 
must weaken, throughout the whole South, the purpose to prose- 
ecute a conflict so ruinous and so bootless. No doubt there are 
wars which may be prosecuted to the last extremity; and, no 
doubt, many thousands of secessionists may have persuaded them- 
selves that this is such a war, or may have so deeply wrecked all 
other hopes that only this desperate stake is left to them. But 
the dictates of reason and morality — the judgment of mankind — 
and the irreversible decree of posterity, is different here. This 
is a revolt, whose complete success would not have justified the 
war into which it has plunged a great country ; and, therefore, 
the certainty of its failure robs its continuance of all pretext. 
And such, at no distant period, may be expected to be the judg- 
ment of the great mass of the Southern people ; and, by conse- 
quence, their peaceful and cordial return to their loyalty, and to 



304 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

the exercise of all their rights as citizens of the United States — 
instead of being a preposterous dream — is not only the most prob- 
able, but apparently the certain result, of a wise and courageous 
treatment of affairs. 

V. Miscalculations of Secession. Miscarriage as to a " United South." And as 
to a " Divided North." And as to the temper, and purpose of the Nation. 
And as to Expansion, the Slave trade, Free trade, Boundless Prosperity, 
Cotton Monopoly, Secession a frightful and inealculahle mistake. 

1. If we consider for a moment the signal miscarriage of all 
the permanent objects of the secessionists, and the strange mis- 
calculations, and absurd pretensions upon which their hopes of 
ultimate success rested ; it will diminish, on one hand, all distrust 
of the grounds on which their hopes of establishing their inde-"" 
pendence by terrifying the nation into consent, or conquering it 
by arms, have been shown to be futile ; and will augment, on the 
other hand, the just confidence of the nation that it is mas- 
ter of the situation ; and augment, also, the confidence with which 
every man in the South, whether loyal or disloyal, ought to con- 
template the disastrous end of this revolt, as inevitable. To suc- 
ceed in establishing, by force, the independence of the South — 
using that word in its large sense, as embracing all the Slave 
States — necessarily involved, as the very first condition, the 
unanimity of the whole South in the movement. Instead of this, 
such a line of conduct was adopted, as made the action of every 
Southern State isolated; and this policy was pursued in such a 
manner, as to make a resort to violence necessary in securing 
unanimity in any State — and as to make the principles of des- 
potism supplant the principles of freedom, in every State. The 
seeds of utter defeat were thickly sown in the first open move- 
ment of the conspiracy. To-day, instead of a completely united, 
there is a thoroughly divided South. And we feel perfectly sat- 
isfied, that if every arm Avas removed from the fifteen Slave 
States, and every man in them all was allowed freely to choose 
his side — and then the whole population was equally and com- 
pletely armed, and the question fought out ; the result would be 
the suppression of the revolt. Born of Southern parents, in a 
Southern State — never having owed or professed allegiance to 
any other government than that of the United States, and that 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 305' 

of the Commonwealth of Kentucky — never having even resided, 
during a life far from short, except temporarily and for brief 
periods, out of the South — and having been obliged by our 
course of life to acquire a large acquaintance with the people, 
the institutions, and the interests of the South ; the opinion we 
have expressed may be fairly weighed against a large amount 
of clamor. It would, we are convinced, be vouched as true and 
sound, on the conditions stated, by more than half a million of 
Southern men — ready upon fair occasion, and if need required, 
to uphold it with their lives. 

2. Again, the second imperative necessity, preliminary to any 
flagrant proceedings by force, was the absolute certainty that the 
pretensions of the South would be supported, at least by opinion, 
in the twenty States of the North, in such a way as to divide 
and weaken all concerted movements, designed to precipitate the 
overwhelming force of twenty millions of people, upon eight mil- 
lions — if the whole South was united — with four millions of 
slaves scattered amongst them ; concerning the freedom or the 
servitude of which slaves, the revolutionists professed that the 
chief cause of the war lay. Instead of that, the unanimity of the 
North proved, from the start, to be complete, and its enthusiasm 
so great, that a brief proclamation of the President, after the 
bombardment at Charleston, called three or four hundred thou- 
sand volunteers to the standard of the nation ; a single State, 
( Ohio ) oflfering more men than were demanded for the whole na- 
tion. With these two facts, nothing can be more obvious, than 
the utter incompetency or the desperate recklessness, of those 
who precipitated their followers into a conflict as unequal as it 
was wicked — and did this with boastings and revilings as un- 
seemly as they were unfounded. 

3. Again, no delusion was ever more complete than that into 
which the leaders of the secession party fell and slept, during 
their long conspiracy of thirty years, of the true character, 
and actual position and temper of the American people, and 
of the force of the power they had themselves accumulated, 
and the value of the preparation they had made for the set- 
ting of a great nation at defiance. They had talked treason 
so long together, that they seemed to consider it a power of 

VOL. I. — NO. 2. 9 



306 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

itself, and all patriotism extinct. The national treasury made 
bankrupt, the small army put totally out of reach, and the arms 
of the nation diligently stored where they could be seized — the 
little navy laid up, or scattered in diiferent seas — the unhappy 
President deluded, seduced, or terrified — and a secret band of 
sworn allies made up of desperate adventurers, disloyal soldiers, 
and corrupt politicians scattered over the nation ; these, as far 
as the public are yet informed, seem to have been the original 
implements which were deemed adequate for the first start of a 
military revolution, Avhose object was the dismemberment of one 
of the greatest of existing nations of the most warlike people, 
with the finest and firmest nationality in the world. Their sub- 
sequent success — founded upon a temporary phrenzy in the pub- 
lic mind, and upon the military ardor of the Southern people, 
their devotion to their domestic institutions, and their personal and 
State pride — may be allowed to redeem, in some degree, the 
miscalculated force of the conspiracy, from utter contempt. It 
is not, however, to the force or foresight of the conspiracy, but 
it is to the disordered and perilous state of the country, itself 
due to causes which we have developed in publications hitherto 
recently made ; that the great political and military movements 
throughout the larger portion of the South, subsequent to the 
inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, are to be attributed. These move- 
ments — in many points of view most deplorable, in many others 
illustrative of noble traits of character of the Southern people, 
and which have given to the secession cause most of its strength 
and all its dignity — even if they could have been foreseen as one 
element of the future, are the farthest possible from excusing the 
revolt. For great as they may be, and unworthy as the cause 
of secession may be of them — their inadequacy to achieve the 
objects proposed by the war, is none the less certain ; an inade- 
quacy founded in the nature of things, and which wise leaders 
would have foreseen, and generous leaders would not have sacri- 
ficed. 

4. When we turn our thoughts towards topics more remote 
than those hitherto considered, they all appear to conspire to 
the same result — the entire defeat of every permanent object 
proposed to be gained by the secession war. If the whole of the 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 307 

Slave States were united, us the result of this war, in a separate 
Confederacy — all the ideas of the future expansion of the new 
nation, which have occupied so large a space in the thoughts of 
men, might be surrendered at once. One year would not elapse, 
in all probability, before an alliance of all nations interested in 
the vast and increasing commerce which must pass across the 
isthmus of Panama, and amongst the islands of the Caribbean sea, 
and across the waters of the Glulf of Mexico ; would effectually 
close the question of expansion, for the Confederate States. In 
like manner, the question of the Slave Trade, to the free prosecu- 
tion of which so much importance continues to be attached, in the 
most earnest of the seceded States ; may be considered definitive- 
ly at an end, let this revolt terminate us it may. In like manner, 
the doctrine of Free Trade, in favor of Avhich the doctrine of 
secession took its rise in South Carolina, and Avhich has been 
continually and conspicuously held forth as one of the priceless 
blessings to be secured by the revolt ; is utterly subverted by one 
of the earliest acts of the Confederate Congress, imposing a duty 
on exports — a form of obstructing commerce forbidden by the 
Federal Constitution. And the boasted career of incalculable 
wealth which secession promised to inaugurate — in the first year 
of its existence is signalized by the charity of the people of 
Illinois sending corn free of charge, to the starving poor of Mis- 
sissippi; while, if the war shall continue till the Confederate 
States conquer the United States, their first year of peace Avill 
exhibit the heaviest ratable public debt, perhaps, in the world, 
and the most burdensome taxation ever borne by an agricultural 
people; and a bankruptcy as absolute as the golden dreams of 
secession were preposterous. To make but one suggestion more, 
it would, perhaps, have been impossible for any madness less 
destructive than this secession war, to have seriously disturbed 
for a century to come, the near approach which the South was 
making to the most productive and extensive monopoly, ever 
possessed by any people in the products of the earth — in its 
growing control of the cotton market of the world. At present, 
so imminent is the peril into which this boundless source of wealth 
has been brought, not only for a few seasons, but it may be in 
permanence — that the armed intervention of the great mari- 



308 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

time and manufacturing nations of the world, for the deliverance 
and protection of the cotton of the Confederate States, is amongst 
the desperate hopes to which their situation gives expression. 

5. Now it does appear to us, that these statements reveal prin- 
ciples and facts of supreme significance, all pointing in the same 
direction, and challenging profound consideration. They appear 
to prove, that secession, in its origin, its progress, its present 
condition, and its terrible future — is a blunder, a failure, a fright- 
ful and incalculable mistake, founded upon every sort of error 
and miscalculation. It is in that view of them, and of their 
teachings, that we have arrayed them. Allowing whatever may 
be thought necessary for our mistake, for our want of full knowl- 
edge, even for our supposed prejudice or want of candor, enough 
remains to indicate, what we have so earnestly insisted on, that 
the complete restoration of the UnioUj is not only a glorious 
event within our reach — which it is the highest duty and inter- 
est, both of the nation and of the seceded States, to accept and 
act upon ; but that the ordinary course of the immense and terri- 
ble affairs now passing before our eyes, leads, though it may be 
through frightful sufferings, towards that result. Would to Grod, 
it might have been in peace, and by reason and love, that the 
country had been saved ! Thanks be to God, for a refuge to all 
parties, such as seems to us to be set before them all, when these 
calamities are overpassed ! For the blood that is shed, and the 
crimes that are committed — let them who are responsible an- 
swer to God ! 



VI. The Border Slave States. St.ate of parties in 1800. Sudden and secret 
Revolution in Virginia. Probable effects, political and military. Western 
Virginia. Central mountain Route to the central South. Delaware, Mary- 
land, Missouri. The original States — the States carved out of them — 
the purchased States. Kentucky, her position, peril, temper, purpose. 

1. At the start, this secession movement was exclusively confined 
to the disciples of Mr. Calhoun — and they, having their chief 
seat in South Carolina, and schools rather than parties in the 
upper Slave States, did not hold the controlling power even in 
1860, in one half of the Cotton States. By degrees, the Demo- 
cratic party of the South had become imbued, under the abused 
name of " State Rights," with the doctrines of free trade, of the 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 309 

increase and extension of slavery, and of secession : and the dis- 
ruption of that party at Charleston and Baltimore, as far as the 
public are now informed, was in the interest of these new ideas, 
and of those old disciples of Mr. Calhoun. The parties, in the 
fifteen Slave States, which supported Mr. Bell and Mr. Douglass 
for the Presidency in 1860, could, if they had united, have carried 
nearly all those States — and, for the time, have put down seces- 
sion. If the Whig Convention, at Balthnore, had nominated 
Gen. Houston, instead of Mr. Bell, this result would probably 
have followed. It is, in effect, the want of ability, or the want 
of patriotism, in the leaders of parties in the Slave States in 1860, 
to which a very large part of the present danger of the nation is 
to be attributed. In the mean time, the Democratic party had 
already, before 1860, acquired the predominance in all the Slave 
States, and when the secession party took up arms against the 
National Government, the political and military power of all those 
States was in the hands of that party. The election of Mr. Lin- 
coln, which produced such a shock throughout the Slave States, 
afforded the opportunity of creating a powerful agitation, upon 
the extreme pro-slavery aspect of secession ; and it was used 
with so little scruple and so great diligence, that to be loyal to 
the Union, and to be an abolitionist, have come to mean the same 
thing in the vocabulary of secessionists ; and organized political 
fanatics and ruffians, wherever they are not repressed by the fear 
of effectual resistance, have, under that pretext, initiated a reign 
of terror. The common predominance of the Democratic party, 
and the universal existence of the institution of slavery in all 
those States, were the bonds of union amongst them all, whereby 
those who meditated revolt expected and sought to carry them 
all for secession : the latter fact affording the secessionists the 
most powerful means of inflaming the passions of men, and the 
former fact providing the power to coerce such as could not be 
seduced. So far as the five Border Slave States were concerned, 
of which we have now to speak particularly, (Delaware, Mary- 
land, Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri ) tlie presidential election 
of 1860 broke the back of this scheme, by breaking, in those five 
States, the power of the party which supported Mojor Breckin- 
ridge for the Presidency. The other part of the scheme of the 



^10 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

secessionists, encountered, in those five States, obstacles which 
proved to be extremely serious. In the first place, the loyalty 
of the people was far more stubborn than had been expected, 
and the peril of attempting to coerce them into disloyalty far 
more grave than had been encountered elsewhere. In the second 
place, the institution of slavery, in those States, stood in a posi- 
tion, and the people occupied toward it a relation, widely difi'er- 
ent from the corresponding facts in the Cotton States ; and the 
people, satisfied with the matter as it stood, saw nothing but peril 
in the remedy offered by secession. In the third place, the geo- 
graphical position of those States gave them immense weight 
while peace could be maintained, and made them the theatre of 
the war, which every one could see the secessionists were making 
inevitable ; so that every consideration of wisdom, patriotism and 
self-respect, admonished them to maintain, inviolably, their posi- 
tion as citizens of the United States. 

2. Such, briefly, was the nature of the situation, generally con- 
sidered, in the five Border Slave States ; which contain more white 
inhabitants, and military resources, than the remaining ten Slave 
States. If these five States had stood firm, the fate of secession 
was sealed. The Avar must have been short, as the speedy and 
complete restoration of the Union certain. The sudden, secret, 
and 'deplorable revolution created in Virginia by a Convention, 
pledged to the great majority of the people who had elected them, 
and expressly bound, by the law which created the body, to take 
a widely diflerent course ; necessarily changed, in many respects, 
the posture of events, and the nature and course of the war. It 
cannot, in our judgment, as we have shown, change the final result. 
It will inflict incalculable injury upon Virginia herself^ and must, 
so far as she is concerned, end in the division of the common- 
wealth, or in radical changes in the nature of her government, 
and in her internal policy. As we understand the matter, the 
popular representation rests on a mixed and arbitrary basis of 
land, slaves, and voters, distributing representation by great sec- 
tions of the State, and then by counties, and towns perhaps, in 
those sections respectively; the general result being, that the 
great central section of the State is unequally represented as 
compared with the eastern section, and the still greater western 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 311 

section still more unequally as compared with both the others 
The government, thus permanently thrown into the hands of a 
minority of the people occupying the eastern and southern sec- 
tions of the State, has been long considered disregardful of the 
ordinary rights and interests of the subject majority, occupying 
the western and northern sections of the State. A permanent and 
flagrant instance of this chronic injustice, is an unequal system 
of taxation, so framed as to relieve the immense aggregate wealth, 
in the form of slaves, held by the ruling minority, in large part 
from any tax at all, and as to the remainder, from a large part 
of the property tax, by fixing a low and arbitrary value on slaves, 
by act of Assembly. Another instance of the same sort is 
alleged to exist, in the systematic injustice with which the rev- 
enue thus fraudulently raised, is spent entirely in the interest of 
the same ruling minority, with complete disregard of the special 
interests of the heavily taxed majority. The Convention which 
voted, in secret session, the ordinance of secession, with a mob of 
secession ruffians, as is alleged, clamoring at their reluctant obedi- 
ence to its behests ; passed, also, and submitted with that ordinance, 
to the people for ratification, an act proposing to concede some- 
thing concerning this slave taxation. Even this concession, wrung 
by the necessity of the occasion — was characteristic of the rul- 
ing spii'it ; the great revolution, though submitted to the idle form 
of a popular vote, under the eyes of fifty thousand armed seces- 
sionists — being made efiectual and executed at once, as if already 
approved by the people; the little act of concession, being made 
ineffectual, till ratified by the popular vote. This statement, neces- 
sary to the full understanding of the case between Eastern and 
Western Virginia, makes it all the more probable that the move- 
ment in the latter against secession, and against the dominant 
minority in the former, will have consequences at once permanent 
and important; all bearing directly against the efficacy of the 
revolutionary action of Eastern Virginia, and of the late Conven- 
tion. 

3. Not the least important of the consequences involved in the 
state of affairs we have been disclosing, is that a perfectly prac- 
ticable military route is thus opened through the heart of the 
most loyal population of the whole South, into the very heart of 



312 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

the inland secession country ; whereby the General Government 
may lead an army for the protection of loyal citizens in the back 
parts of Georgia and both the Carolinas on the left hand, in North- 
ern Mississippi and Alabama in front, and in West Tennessee on 
the right. The mountain region which covers Western Virginia 
and Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, penetrates into Georgia, 
Alabama, and North and South Carolina. Two hundred miles wide 
from east to west, and double as long from north to south, the long 
valleys of this remarkable region, flanked everywhere by moun- 
tain ranges, run precisely in the direction that an army for pro- 
tection of loyal citizens of the South should take. A march of 
ten or fifteen days from the Ohio river, through Western Virginia, 
would place a force in the mountains of East Tennessee, cutting 
the line of the railroad which connects the Atlantic ocean with 
the Mississippi river at Memphis. The effects of such a forward 
movement, invited by the conduct of Virginia, and indicated by 
the highest military and political considerations — would be imme- 
diate and decisive, if sustained by an adequate force, under an 
'able commander. And our persecuted brethren in East Tennes- 
see, Northern Alabama, and the back parts of Georgia and the 
Carolinas, may see — in the hints that we have ventured to throw 
out — that they are not out of the reach of succor. We believe 
that ten thousand volunteers from the mountains of Kentucky, 
would follow Robert Anderson in such an expedition, for such 
an object; and it may be confidently added, ten thousand more 
from Western Virginia, and ten thousand who would join them 
in East Tennessee. No portion of America had less motive to 
betray herself than Virginia had ; none could ever put more at 
stake, by one act of, what seems to us, suicidal folly, than she 
has done. Renowned and venerated name ! — well do we know 
that many of your heroic sons will die for you, on the mere point 
of honor, even though they blush at what you have done ! They 
will die in vain ; neither maintaining what you have decreed, nor 
wiping out its stain! 

4. The posture of Delaware and Maryland may be considered 
definitively settled, and, as to the result, essentially the same, in 
many respects ; and that of Missouri is so analagous to that of 
Maryland, that we need not separate it from them, in the few 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 313 

remarks it is necessary to make. Delaware casts in her lot, with 
a prompt movement and a loyal heart, with the nation of which 
she is so small but so true a part. The relation of Delaware to 
Maryland is geographically such, that it seems a great marvel 
that both of them should, in times like these, apparently over- 
look the great mutual importance of their forming the closest 
bonds with each other. Maryland looked to Virginia for guid- 
ance — when she and Delaware united were really more import- 
ant to the Federal Government, than Virginia was; and far more 
entitled, in the circumstances, to give the lead than to follow Vir- 
ginia. Iler great peril before the late revolt in Baltimore, was 
her want of preparation, watchfulness, and self-reliance ; which, 
but for the wise, forbearing, and firm conduct of the General Gov- 
ernment, would have cost her dear. Her great peril now is, from 
the seductions of Virginia, and the machinations of her own dis- 
loyal sons. As to her destiny — no discussion can make it any 
plainer than it is already, to every one who will reflect upon her 
whole position. As long as the Federal Government exists, and 
Washington is the capital of the American nation, Maryland is 
an indispensable portion of that nation ; and as such, has before 
her a boundless career of prosperity, freedom, and honor. In her, 
disloyalty to the nation is not only wickedness — it is folly. The 
same general state of case, though for reasons in some respects 
different, exists with regard to Missouri. If the country west of 
Missouri is to remain a portion of the nation, it is impossible for 
the nation to allow that State to separate from it. If the South 
is to become a separate nation, it is equally impossible for the 
United States to give up the military position — one of the 
strongest in the world — covered by the mouths of the Ohio and 
Missouri rivers. The position of Missouri is central, and un- 
speakably powerful and important, as a member of the Federal 
Union; and there is no degree of wealth, power, and influence, 
to which she may not attain, if the Union is maintained. So that 
her own interest, in every conceivable way, points to the same 
great career, which the absolute necessities of the nation will se- 
cure for her, if she continues loyal to it. To us, we admit, this 
whole affair of secession has been an enigma, in this — that all the 
reasons and pretexts, alleged as a justification, or even an excuse 



314 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

for the course Avhich the revolt has taken, have appeared to us 
so totally dispi'oportioned to the conduct they professed to explain ; 
that we have felt as if there must be other grounds, as yet concealed 
from the public, upon which men of sense and honor pursued a 
line of conduct, apparently so monstrous, as compared with all 
the known defences of it. We regret to say that the secession- 
ists in Missouri, and we must add, though perhaps in a less degree, 
in Maryland, appear to be signally amenable to this charge, 
whether we consider what it was they attempted — or the means 
which they resorted to — or the manner in which they quailed, 
when it became necessary to assume the responsibility of what 
they had done — or the machinations they have kept up, since 
their conspiracy in both those States was defeated. It is clear 
to us that the million and a half, or upwards, of white inhabit- 
ants, in Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri, must be counted out 
— whenever the strength of secession is summed up. And we 
will now proceed to show that the million in Kentucky must also 
be deducted. 

5. There are very high senses in which all the States are equal, 
both in fact, and in the contemplation of the Federal Constitution. 
Nevertheless, there are circumstances connected with the past 
history, and indeed with the origin, of all the States, that seem 
to place them in positions by no means identical — touching the 
" State Rights," and the corresponding " National Rights," which 
enter so largely into the dij0ficulties produced by secession. We 
have, in a former publication, attempted to show that a National 
Government and State Governments united into one political sys- 
tem, is the original, continuous, exclusive, and perpetual form of 
government chosen by the American people since ever they were 
a nation, and by all the commonwealths composing that nation 
since ever they were States ; and we have attempted, after estab- 
lishing this controlling truth, to show its bearing upon secession, 
in various points of view. What we have to say now is, that at 
the bar of reason and conscience, there is a diiference touching 
the rights claimed, as to secession, between the original thirteen 
States, and the twenty-one States added since ; and that there is 
a diffei'ence, again, between those out of these twenty-one added 
States, which were acquired by conquest, treaty, or purchase, 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 315 

and those which were created out of portions of the first thirteen 
States. The plea of Virginia or North Carolina, for example, 
might have a certain aspect entitling it to grave consideration ; 
■while the plea, for example, of Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, 
might provoke only derision ; while the plea, for example, of Ten- 
nessee to have the benefit of the Repeal Ordinance of her mother 
North Carolina, might appear to be nearer, in equity, to the first 
than to the second of the two other classes. Our judgment is 
against the validity of the very highest of these pleas ; and the 
lowest of them seem to us monstrous, in every point of view. 
Considering the past history of the case of Louisiana, for exam- 
ple, her recent conduct, so far from being founded in justice, is 
even destitute of a decent regard for appearances. 

6. The position of Kentucky, the only remaining Border Slave 
State, is historically at the head of the class of new States carved 
out of old ones. From her birth as the first State added, nearly 
seventy years ago, to the original thirteen, her whole career has 
been marked by the noble qualities of Virginia, at that period, 
and before, and long after, and which shone, Avith peculiar luster, 
in the founders of the young commonwealth. And we confident- 
ly predict, that let Virginia falter and fall, as she may, her 
daughter will maintain her loyalty to the good, and will reject 
the evil, in her example. Behold an example and a proof: Vir- 
ginia asked her to meet her in counsel to preserve the Union ; 
meantime, Virginia suddenly determined, before the appointed 
day of counsel, to destroy the Union. Kentucky having accepted 
the former counsel and invitation, went on totally regardless 
of the subsequent madness — elected her commissioners without 
opposition, and by the largest popular vote she ever gave to any 
proposition — and kept the appointed day. There is, in fact, but 
one internal peril hanging over Kentucky. The executive 
power of the State, and the command of her military force, is in 
the hands of a Governor — having yet two years to serve — who 
is totally out of sympathy with the great mass of the people, 
and who has used the influence of his office, and all its power, in 
a direction, and towards an end, hateful to the bulk of those 
whose Governor he is. If Mr. Magoffin Avas a loyal Union man, 
the whole internal difficulty of Kentucky would terminate in a 



816 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

week ; unless the secession minority should be mad enough to 
take up arms, and call in Confederate troops ; in which case, of 
course, unless Kentucky should instantly suppress them, she 
would become one of the theatres of the war. That event may 
happen. It is believed by many to be highly probable, under 
present circumstances. Situated as the State is, it is a contin- 
gency which is constantly impending ; and to meet which, if it 
should happen, there is no way but by arms. The very plainest 
duty of the Union men of Kentucky, therefore, for months past, 
has been to ai-m and organize themselves, to the very last man, 
and in the most effectual manner, and in the shortest possible 
time. We desire, from the bottom of our heart, that Governor 
Magoffin, and the party with which he acts, may be content to 
guide their conduct by law, and in obedience to the known will 
of the people of Kentucky ; and that by so doing, he may keep 
the calamities of war from desolating the State. But if he and 
his party will not do this, or cannot do it — upon both of which 
points there is deep and wide distrust in the public mind — then 
he and they must take the responsibility of all that may follow. 
And he and they both well know, that the people of Kentucky 
will not submit to the despotism of the Confederate States — 
will not allow of a reign of terror — will not tolerate revolution- 
ary committees — will not tamely submit to injuries, insults, op- 
pressions, or usui'pations of any kind — and will not give up their 
loyalty to the American nation, or their place in the American 
Union. The mass of the people of Kentucky sincerely desire the 
restoration of the entire Union ; they strongly disapprove of the 
whole course of the secessionists from the beginning ; they believe, 
at the same time, that the whole South has had great cause of 
dissatisfaction — and they do not feel free to take part in the war 
against the Confederate States : nor will they take part against 
the Federal Government, which, however they may disapprove of 
it, or its acts, they recognize as the representative of the nation 
of which they arc a loyal part, and the chief executive author- 
ity under that Constitution which is the supreme law. What they 
desire and propose, therefore, is to take no part in this war; and 
by this means, they intend — in the first place, to express the true 
state of their feelings ; in the second place, to occupy a position in 



1861.] STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 317 

which, as a mediator, they may, as soon and as often as occasion 
offers, do all in their power to restore peace and Union, if that be 
possible; a,nd in the third place, to preserve themselves and their 
State from the horrors of a conflict which they did all they could 
to prevent, which they cannot engage in Avith a good will, and 
which, in the divided state of opinion amongst her people, and 
by reason of her geographical position, would probably be ruin- 
ous to the State, by means of her becoming actively engaged in 
it. 

7. Such we believe to be the existing state of opinion and 
affairs in Kentucky. With regard to it, we will make but two 
general remarks. The first is, that in our judgment, the state 
of opinion in Kentucky is chiefly characterized by the public mind 
being torn by conflicting principles and passions, often working 
even in the same mind, in opposite directions, — and, as the gen- 
eral result, begetting a decided popular reluctance to any violent 
measures, or any extreme courses, or any irrecoverable step ; but 
that the tendency of opinion has been constant and rapid, in 
favor of the Union ; and that, at every period, and especially at 
present, the number of persons who would vote to take Kentucky 
out of the Union, is a comparatively small portion of the peo- 
ple — made dangerous by their violence, their activity, their or- 
ganization, their being extensively armed, their good understand- 
ing with the secession leaders and military officers, and their 
sympathy with the chief executive and military authorities in the 
Commonwealth. The second remark we have to make is, that 
the same wise and lofty forbearance manifested by the general 
Government towards Maryland, and we will add towards Mis- 
souri — will be manifested, there is every reason to believe, to- 
wards Kentucky, in the high but unusual position she has felt it 
to be her duty to assume. In the case of Kentucky — and we 
may add Missouri — this conduct of the President, which those 
States certainly should applaud, and which would give them peace 
at once, if it were imitated by the Confederate Government, is 
extremely significant ; as it seems to indicate that, in his opinion, 
the neutral and yet loyal position of these two great central 
States, may, in certain highly probable events of the war, be 
turned to great advantage, in that complete restoration of the 



318 STATE OF THE COUNTRY. [June, 

Union, whicli the loyal citizens of both of those States ardently 
desire. 

VII. General Conclusion. 

There remain many topics of great importance and signifi- 
cance, concerning which we have said nothing. And yet the 
number and the magnitude of those we have attempted to eluci- 
date, compared with the narrowness of the space they occupy, 
might indicate that our error may rather be in attempting too 
much, than in not attempting more. The whole subject is one, 
of which we never think seriously, without profound astonishment 
and anguish ; about which we have never written a line without 
attempting to exercise the severest rectitude, as if we were speak- 
inff in the face of another generation. This civil war is a terri- 
ble portent. All civilized nations regard it with horror ; and 
posterity will be obliged to pronounce it an inconceivable out- 
rage upon the freedom, the morality, and the civilization of the 
present age. To what ends God, in his adorable Providence, has 
allowed it, and will conduct it, and use it — it behooves every one, 
who acknowledges there is a God, to ponder deeply — and every 
one, ^yho professes to serve God, to search diligently. 

A few great truths seem to us transparently clear — and 
amongst them not one is more impressive, at the present moment, 
than that which we have attempted to illustrate in this paper. 
The American Nation ought to be preserved, and the American 
Union ought to be restored. This war ought to be conducted by 
the Nation — under the impression of that solemn necessity — 
which, as far as we can judge, is shown to be attainable, alike 
by the indications of Divine Providence, and by all the circum- 
stances upon which enlightened human judgments can be formed. 
If in these things we err, nothing will remain, but for the nation 
to bow its august head reverently before the known Avill of God, 
and the irresistible force of destiny. It has already redeemed it- 
self from the ignominious fate to which the last Federal Adminis- 
tration had consigned it. Let its destruction bear some just pro- 
portion to the glory of its past life. 

* 



W60 



P*iablislier'« Circular* 



DANVILLE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 

The first Number of this new Theological and Literary Periodical — which took 
high rank at once among the ablest in America or Europe — appeared in JMarch, 
and the second in June, 1801. Its publication is designed mainly for the expo- 
sition, advancement, and defense of the Christian Keligion, considered in its purely 
Evaiigelical sense; and for open resistance to whatever is hostile to it, or inconsistent 
with it. In perfect consistency with that chief design, its pages are open to the 
consideratioB of all other interests of man, and the discussion of everything that 
promotes or obstructs any one of those interests. The work was projected, and is 
contr(.illed, by persons, all of whom are members of the Presbyterian Church in the 
United States of America, all of whom accept the standards of that Church in their 
obvious sense. 

It is conducted by an Association of Ministers, as follows ; 

Kev. ROBERT J. BRECKINKIDGE, D.D., LL.D., \ -o - -r, 

.„^,„.„^ ^ „^^,^^-,^-„„^^ ^' ^ ' ' ) Proiessors m Dan- 



JOSEPH T. SMITH, D.D., J ^ 



EDA^ARD P. HUMPHREY, D. D., 
" STEPHEN YERKES, D. 
" JOSEPH T. SMITH, D.D 

" JACOB COOPER, Ph. D., , ^ . r. * on 

'• JAMES MATTHEWS, '} Professors m Centre College, Danville. 

" ROBERT W. LANDIS, D. D., St. Louis, Mo, 

" JOHN M. WORRALL, Covington, Ky. 

" ROBERT L. BRECK, New Albany, Indiana. 

The Eeview will be issued regularly in the months of March, June, Sep- 
tember, and December, and contain an average of 176 pages in each Number, or 
about 700 pages per year. 

Tekms. — $3.00 per annum. One copy two years, $5.00. strictly in advance. 
Four copies one year, in advance, $10.00. To Missionaries, only $2. 'Any single 
quarterly Number will be sent by mail, post paid, for 80 cents. 

Special Tekms. — To any laymanGordering two ccjpios, (for himself and his 
Pastor,) previous to 15th of August, $5, if paid in advance. Any Minister, to 
whom it is not convenient to pay immediately, can have the Review forwarded 
to his address, and pay for same by 1st January, 1862 And if, prior to that date, 
ho .-hall send the names of 7iew subscribers (with the money, $3 each) he shall be 
credited on his own subscription the sum of One Dollar for each name (with the 
money) so sent. 

Address Eemittances, and other letters on business, to 

RICHARD H. COLLINS, 

Publisher "Danville Eeview," 25 West Fourth St., Cincinnati, 0. 

THE SEPTEMBER NUMBER 

will contain Articles on the "New Gospel of Eationalism," the "Doctrine ■ > 
Imputation," and probably one by Dr. Breckinridge reviewing the proceedings | 
of thi; last Presbyterian General Assembly at Philadelphia. Of the Article 'n 
the Ddctrine of Imputation, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, who read C: 
thus writes to the Pul)lisher : 

"Tliis first iJiirt (<if tlirpe) is very able — and as soon as its nature aud design are known by .uii 
niinislry, will be sutight with avidity ; aud will require some of llie ablest and most widely inllueni; ^i 
of'yiir Anicricau 'I'lieulofiians eitlier"to modify tbeir statements, or defend them better than they h,; . • 
hitherto douc. The Articles will, I think, make a powerful impression, and do our Church an iur .i 
culable service." 




V^'^^^o^ ^'^^^-^.^^^^ ^o/*^»^*\o'5 




